Care Home shut for good following CQC Review

A care home in Stoke is set to close with the loss of all jobs due to the withdrawal of funding following a poor review from the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

Workers at Mitchell House Nursing Home were informed that the facility would be closing, with all staff being made redundant.

The care home is run by John Munroe Group Limited. The same company that ran a further two facilities, Edith Shaw Hospital and John Munroe Hospital, in which the former is due to be closed and the latter has already been shut down at the time of writing.

Chief executive Paul Birks of John Munroe Group Limited, emailed staff to tell them about the ‘impending closure’ of the facilities say that ‘funders have unilaterally decided they are no longer willing to continue to support the organisation’.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) undertook a review of Mitchell House Nursing Home in December 2021, and the care home was provided with an overall rating of “Inadequate” in the report published on 4^th May 2022.

The inspection report is split into five categories and rated individually. The categories and ratings are as follows:

• Is the service safe? – Inadequate
• Is the service effective? – Requires Improvement
• Is the service caring? – Requires Improvement
• Is the service responsive? – Requires Improvement
• Is the service well-led? – Inadequate

Inspectors raised numerous concerns over various incidents that occurred at Mitchell House Nursing Home.

The Commission found that people did not have risk assessments in place to give staff clear guidance to follow on how to support people to mitigate known risks. Where people had risk assessments completed these were not accurate or complete.

For example, one person was at risk of self-harm and had recently attempted to end their life whilst at the home. This person’s risk assessment stated there was no known risk of self-harm or suicide and not all staff were aware of this incident.

The CQC reported that medicines were not managed safely, and people did not always receive their medicines as prescribed. For example, one person only received half of their prescribed dose of diabetes medicines for six days.

This was not identified by the nurses administering the medicine or the registered manager. Staff recorded administering some people’s medicines inaccurately. For example, staff had recorded they had given one person their medicines four times on one day when these were only prescribed three times.

This meant the person was given an overdose of their prescribed medicines and they were exposed to the harm associated with this.

The Commission reviewed people’s notes that showed not all potential safeguarding concerns were reported to the Local Authority as required. For example, one person had left the home alone twice and staff had contacted the police.

However, no incident form had been completed and no referral made to the local safeguarding team. Staff had completed an incident form following a person telling them they gave men money from their bedroom window.

CCTV at the home confirmed two men had come to the person’s window and whilst the registered manager informed the police and the person’s social worker; no referral was made to the local safeguarding team for further investigation and to protect the person from potential abuse.

The company is now working with the NHS and Staffordshire County Council to ensure the safe transfer of all patients and residents.

Further reading

Care Home Claims – Oakwood Solicitors

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